Anxiety

This is not a daily blog. Well, it's after midnight, so if one just doesn't happen tomorrow, I can just say that this IS the daily blog. But I probably already ruined that by saying this...

I was thinking that I probably ought to go to sleep instead of typing this up. My sleep schedule has been awful, but then again, going to bed earlier hasn't seemed to help. Plus if the motivation behind everyday blog entries was to get myself INTO writing again, then if I have a time that I WANT to write a blog, I should definitely do that.

I don't know why, but for some reason tonight I am suddenly feeling kind of melancholy. I am not feeling bad about myself and my job hunting status per say, but I was thinking about how this time has been for me.

I think the worst thing about job hunting is the lack of accomplishment. Sure, getting an application turned in and even an interview now and then are accomplishments, but there is not a lot to actually feel good about. It's a thankless job. It is so hard to try to "sell yourself," your "great" personality, work ethic, and everything you have to offer an employer when there are no reminders that those things are all true except for the ones you have to constantly feed yourself to get through the cover letters and resumes. How do you, after months of nothing much more than self-assurance, go up in front of an interviewer and behave like a champion?

"Fake it till you make it" seems to have been my philosophy so far. Some of the greatest strides in my life that I've ever made were when I didn't feel adequate but just pretended until I could finally get to a place where it was a real feeling. I feel pretty certain that I will be "faking it" at my interview next week. Then again, I wonder if just about everyone is the same as me in that kind of situation.

Sometimes I feel like other people have it much easier than I do. I see some people who find it easy to "network," when I just pretend to find it easy. I've learned a lot from these people, I've modeled behavior after them, which is how I learned to appear at ease. Still, I wonder how they can do it. How they can be so self-assured that they don't stumble over words and make great impressions on people? I even stumble with my words sometimes with people I consider to be my good friends.

I've made GREAT (read: ginormous) strides over the years with my social anxiety and self-confidence, but these little bits that still exist really irk me. I want to grow out of them so badly but most of my waking hours I don't even want to acknowledge they exist. THEY DO- they exist in my sometimes lack of clarity in speech and now sometimes I start feeling uncomfortable in conversation. I KNOW THEY EXIST because I get frustrated when people point them out.

OK- so another thing for me to work on in the next week before my interview. In exactly a week from now, I will be in San Francisco and HOPEFULLY sleeping as I will have that interview the very next morning. This is perhaps the most important thing I can do for this interview and for my life. This week I resolve to try to work through my remaining social anxiety. As always, I will accept strides towards improvement as it seems like all the good change so far as come in that form.

There was a topic change at some point, but it felt natural to me so I rolled with it. :)